DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.67683#0201
THE FOURTH CENTURY AND HELLENISTIC AGE 133
horseman in the foreground who has been pierced by the spear
of Alexander and is falling from his wounded steed. Darius is
fleeing in his chariot, but he looks back at the wounded man with
anguish in his face and arm outstretched as if in helpless appeal.
Another horseman in the foreground has dismounted, and while
attempting to hold his horse looks toward his wounded com-
panion as if to offer his mount. Here, then, is a well defined
center of interest toward which all the main lines of the compo-
sition lead. The vigor in the charge of the Greeks, the conster-
nation of the routed Persians, the real anguish in the face of
Darius, are expressed with directness. There is bold and fairly
correct foreshortening, notably in the horses in the foreground.
The background is flat, with no indication of landscape except
a gnarled tree sketchily indicated; the upper third of the panel,
perfectly flat and unadorned except for the highly decorative
tree and the spears, offers an interesting contrast to the vigor and
movement of the lower part.
Painting in Greece must have been, in its highest manifestation,
supremely noble and monumental. It had little kinship with the
realistic work of either the Renaissance or modern times; for,
while the painters studied nature, their purpose was not to create
an illusion of natural appearance, but to express highly general-
ized and significant aspects of form only; to indicate, with the
highest intellectual clarity, the essentials of natural appearance
and to express through them a meaning as spiritual as did the
sculptor of the Parthenon marbles. In this respect they are one
in purpose with the painters of the A] ant a Frescoes of India (Pl.
163 b and c) or with the Chinese (Pls. 168-9). This result they
attained primarily by the use of line, making a restrained use of
color, perspective, and light and shade.
MINOR ARTS
The worker in metals — bronze, gold, silver — maintained in
this period the same high level of craftsmanship that he reached
in the fifth century. Gold was a medium in which he delighted
to work for its own sake, because, as several processes could be
employed in its use — repousse, modeling, filigree, plaiting — he
could create a varied design. In a necklace (Pl. 50 a), for example,
he has plaited five strands for the band from which hang small
pendants attached by tiny starlike florets, that probably once
were filled with enamel. Each petal of these florets is edged with
a hairlike wire soldered to its edge; the plaited band terminates
horseman in the foreground who has been pierced by the spear
of Alexander and is falling from his wounded steed. Darius is
fleeing in his chariot, but he looks back at the wounded man with
anguish in his face and arm outstretched as if in helpless appeal.
Another horseman in the foreground has dismounted, and while
attempting to hold his horse looks toward his wounded com-
panion as if to offer his mount. Here, then, is a well defined
center of interest toward which all the main lines of the compo-
sition lead. The vigor in the charge of the Greeks, the conster-
nation of the routed Persians, the real anguish in the face of
Darius, are expressed with directness. There is bold and fairly
correct foreshortening, notably in the horses in the foreground.
The background is flat, with no indication of landscape except
a gnarled tree sketchily indicated; the upper third of the panel,
perfectly flat and unadorned except for the highly decorative
tree and the spears, offers an interesting contrast to the vigor and
movement of the lower part.
Painting in Greece must have been, in its highest manifestation,
supremely noble and monumental. It had little kinship with the
realistic work of either the Renaissance or modern times; for,
while the painters studied nature, their purpose was not to create
an illusion of natural appearance, but to express highly general-
ized and significant aspects of form only; to indicate, with the
highest intellectual clarity, the essentials of natural appearance
and to express through them a meaning as spiritual as did the
sculptor of the Parthenon marbles. In this respect they are one
in purpose with the painters of the A] ant a Frescoes of India (Pl.
163 b and c) or with the Chinese (Pls. 168-9). This result they
attained primarily by the use of line, making a restrained use of
color, perspective, and light and shade.
MINOR ARTS
The worker in metals — bronze, gold, silver — maintained in
this period the same high level of craftsmanship that he reached
in the fifth century. Gold was a medium in which he delighted
to work for its own sake, because, as several processes could be
employed in its use — repousse, modeling, filigree, plaiting — he
could create a varied design. In a necklace (Pl. 50 a), for example,
he has plaited five strands for the band from which hang small
pendants attached by tiny starlike florets, that probably once
were filled with enamel. Each petal of these florets is edged with
a hairlike wire soldered to its edge; the plaited band terminates